RISE Research Project now underway

OpenResearch has launched the RISE Research Project, an economic stability study of rural America now underway in Mercer County, WV, Beaufort County, NC, and Warren County, MS. This descriptive study examines participants’ experiences with the RISE Guaranteed Minimum Income (GMI) program, implemented by GiveDirectly, which provides monthly cash payments to participants over a 16-month period.

The research centers on participant-defined priorities and trajectories. It explores how participants navigate what matters most to them—from housing and health to work and relationships—how circumstances change over time, and what barriers and resources, including cash, shape trajectories.

The study uses a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative surveys with community-embedded ethnographic research. Baseline survey data collection is currently being fielded in all three counties, with the first bimonthly survey set to begin this month, and the first wave of qualitative interviews underway. We hired an ethnographer who has been traveling between sites and staying in each community over extended periods to document how structural barriers, community resources, and local conditions shape participants' lives. 

This study focuses on the "how" and "why" to understand not just associations, but how monthly cash payments intersect with the structural realities in these rural communities and why trajectories unfold as they do.

OpenResearch will release findings through baseline, midline, and endline reports over the course of the study. By documenting both what monthly cash shapes and what it can't address alone, the research will contribute data, insights, and participant narratives to critical policy discussions about stability and opportunity in rural America.